Page 7 of Junkyard Dog

Duck joins us outside. “She’s good to go,” he says. “She’s stronger than she thinks. She’s going to need you to keep an eye on her though. Keep her mind off things. You’ve got this.”

“You think so?”

“No doubt.” I’m not sure. I start to get worried when Duck grins. “But you have to tell her that she’s moving in. Have fun.”

The guys take off. When I go back inside, Mandy has her head in Rhiannon’s lap and is getting scratches behind her ears. “New plan,” I say. “You’ll be staying with me for a while. It keeps Romy off the radar, and nobody will be able to find you here. Romy will pack your stuff and give it to Bishop, who will hand it off at the garage. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees quietly. “I could just go.”

“It wouldn’t be safe.” I don’t want to think too hard about me being responsible for her safety, so I blaze forward. “You take the bedroom. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“Absolutely not!”

“I sleep alone. I like this sofa. I sleep on it all the time. Besides, the bedroom door has a lock. I want you to use it. I have nightmares sometimes.”

All the time. I haven’t slept through the night in almost two years. Ever since I got hurt. “I was in an accident,” I explain. “With Violet’s husband, Keith. We were both SEALs. We were doing a demolition training exercise, working with underwater explosives. The detonator was faulty. Keith and I didn’t get clear. He was killed instantly. They fished me out of the water and got me breathing again but I was a mess. As you can see.” I wave at the scar that runs over my ear and around the back of my head. The puckered, pink tissue is very visible through my short, dark hair. During my recovery, they had to keep shaving the area to monitor healing. I’ve kept it up, making sure I can see it to remember what happened.

A breath of air explodes from my mouth. “I know,” I say before Rhiannon can say anything about being sorry or it not being my fault. “We couldn’t have known that Russo tampered with the detonator. We followed all the protocols. We did everything right.”

Suddenly I’m beside Rhiannon on the sofa. I don’t remember sitting down. She gives Mandy a gentle shove. I end up with a dog in my lap, and I immediately begin to pet it. “If I had been even five feet further away, the explosive concussion might not have knocked me out. I might have been able to grab Keith and surface. But I wasn’t, I didn’t, and he died.”

I’ve had this conversation a million times. It won’t change anything. At least Rhiannon’s not insisting that I need to forgive myself for not being Superman. “Everything that happened is on Russo. I know that. He didn’t get away with it. Violet figured it out. He wasn’t charged though. He died before he could be taken into custody. Car accident.” I helped with that. I don’t regret it. God knows how many other SEALs and civilians he would have murdered to keep his fucking little crime ring profitable.

Now we’re on the porch. Rhiannon points down the driveway. I’ll go wherever she leads. The dogs are on either side of me, bumping my legs and rubbing their heads under my hands as we walk. She pushes her windblown hair away to look at me when I begin speaking again.

“I was fucking thrilled to identify Russo’s body. I couldn’t stop what happened, but at least I got to do that much. I made sure people knew he wouldn’t be hurting anybody else. I got that part right.” I’m panting like I just ran a four-minute mile. I stopped him in the end. That counts for something.

“I’m glad he’s dead. I hope it hurt.” Rhiannon’s voice is quiet. The venom in it shocks me. She looks like such a sweet little thing that I didn’t think she had it in her. “If he was in jail, still breathing, while Keith was dead, while you are all still hurting,that’s not justice. You can’t bring Keith back, but you survived. You made sure Violet and Peony survived. And Russo can’t hurt anybody else.”

“It’s still not fair, but it’s as fair as it can get.” Keith, Violet and I lost, but in the end, Russo didn’t get the final win either.

“Life,” Rhiannon says in agreement.

“Yeah, life.”

I hear the scrape of an undercarriage bouncing off one of the ruts in the driveway, then the knocking of an engine as it’s turned off. I shuffle Rhiannon to the side, so she’s hidden between two SUVs. Then I head to the gate. “We’re closed,” I yell as I come around the corner.

Fuck me, it’s a white van. “Can you help me? My friend told me to meet her around here, but I think she’s lost. She’s driving a green Charger, DC plates. Have you seen her?” Abby Trask, according to the driver’s licence photo that Picnic shared, is not being subtle as she looks around.

She crouches to duck under the gate. “Lady, we’re closed. This isn’t a rest stop. I haven’t seen your friend. Try looking in town.”

“The bitch isn’t there anymore,” the woman snaps. She runs her hand through her hair until it stands up wildly. “I’ve looked everywhere. She’s probably holed up in some love shack with my man.”

“I thought you said you were looking for a friend.”

“The homewrecking whore used to be.”

Now I really don’t like this woman. Neither do the dogs. Cajun steps forward and growls. I know the feeling. “Look, I don’t know you. I don’t know your friend. I haven’t seen that car. And I’m not your man, so I really don’t give a shit about any of this. You’re on private property. Fuck off.”

Abby looks like she wants to say more, but Mandy barks once. Rotties can look ferocious as hell. Both of mine are givingthis bitch the full treatment. The woman falls on her ass and scoots back under the gate. She glares at me before she climbs back into her van.

After she backs down the driveway, I return to where I stashed Rhiannon. She hasn’t moved a step. “You are definitely staying here, behind locked doors, as long as that woman is in North Dakota.”

“Whatever you say.”

Chapter Seven

I’m reeling. JD doesn’t talk, my ass. Maybe he doesn’t speak often, but when he does, he chooses his words for maximum effect. No wonder everybody says he’s fucked up. His last few years sound like hell. It also sounds like JD knows it; he understands what really happened and is on the road to believing it. I’m not military and I’m not a therapist, but I can listen to him say that it wasn’t his fault as many times as he needs me to before it’s his truth, not just everybody else’s.

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